Into the Void
by Archon of Darkness
Summary: Out of the Dark/Hundred Empires crossover . The lesson of humanity's instinct for survival was the last lesson that the Shongair expedition learned. Now their entire race will learn another: never underestimate the human race.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: (Read full author's note at the end of the chapter)_

_Since the corresponding categories are not present on FF, I'll put this here._

_This is a crossover of "Out of the Dark," a novel by David Weber, and my own Hundred Empires, adapted from the Ogame and Zorg Empires browser games._

* * *

><p><span>Into the Void<span>

Chapter 1

"What do you make of this, Stephen?"

Stephen Buchevsky and two other humans stood around a console, it's readouts streaming data in an alien language, incomprehensible to a normal man, but the three were not confused in the slightest by it. At least, not by the language, but what it was saying, on the other hand...

They had learned from the neural educators. They had learned everything that the Hegemony ever knew...yet they did not know what was happening here.

It started only hours ago, relative time, but days to anyone outside their ship. They had received a comm message, and it wasn't from one of the other six dreadnoughts. It claimed to be coming from a human vessel following them from a distance. Sensor logs confirmed that there was indeed an object following them, but it was incredibly tiny, weighing almost nothing, and bounced around at nearly the speed of sound like a hyperactive fly.

It was where the messages were coming from, almost instantaneously replying each time Stephen had his people type them something. It did not take long for the three vampires to put two and two together.

A vessel could indeed appear like that from their perspective. After all, objects became heavier as you went faster, so the ship would be much lighter compared to you. But this ship was traveling at eight times the speed of light, the same speed as the dreadnought, without their time slowing down!

How was that possible? Even more impossible was that it claimed to be a _human_ vessel! It was certainly possible that humanity could have advanced quite a bit in the three subjective years since the dreadnought left, but this was simply impossible.

But then came the video they sent. It had been compressed unbelievably to survive the immense stretching the signal underwent from traveling through time dilation, and even then it seemed to be on permanent fast forward. After slowing it down on the ship's computer, though, Stephen immediately recognized the speaker.

Vlad Drakulya, Prince of Wallachia, one-time Vlad the Impaler.

"I understand that this is all hard to believe," Vlad had said, speaking in Romanian. "Believe me, my Stephen, it was no easier for me. But the evidence they have is difficult to deny, impossible even."

"Listen to them," the video had said. "Give them at least that much. They are are not our people, but they are not our enemies either."

Stephen Buchevsky had lost everything to the Shongair. Technically speaking, he had even lost his life to them. His anger would not be abated until and unless the Shongair paid for what they had done to him, to his people, to his planet. They would pay, and would do so in blood.

However, he knew that whatever anger and hatred he felt was nothing compared to what Vlad held inside him, yet he was willing to stop his journey and join them. In fact, he sounded almost...weary. Had something happened? Had something else, something worse than even the Shongairi threat, come to Earth? There was only one way to find out.

The former Marine folded his midnight black arms across his massive chest.

"These people cannot be trusted...yet," he rumbled pensievely. "But Vlad...prepare to drop us into n-space."

* * *

><p>Dropping out of h-space was no quick task. Systems that were passive during hyperspace flight had to be roused, others had to be properly calibrated to operate in normal space conditions, and the engines had to be stepped down from maximum h-speed.<p>

Approximately twelve hours later, subjective time (four hours relative time), a half dozen vampires stood in the open hangar. The air had been siphoned away, and the men were unprotected, but it made no difference to them. They no longer had to breathe anyway.

Stephen and the others stood like stone statues, gazing intently at the vessel outside and the three small pinpricks approaching them.

The ship, Stephen had to admit, was formidable, to say the least. Gun turrets stood out on every surface he could see, and he was sure that hundreds of smaller ones were there as well, too small to see at this distance. Yet it also had a certain lethal beauty about it, too. The armor on its sides was surprisingly smooth for a warship, a far cry from the jagged, bumpy dreadnought that the vampires stood inside of.

The empty space around the "human" (Stephen still was not convinced that humans could have built this kind of thing yet) vessel seemed to almost glisten and swirl. Stephen could only guess what that was. Perhaps it was a form of shielding, like the Shongairi ship's own magnetic shields?

The pinpricks grew closer, and the men could easily see that they were anything but small. Each looked almost big enough to hold a platoon of soldiers, let alone a welcoming committee. Stephen began to tense, his Marine sense going wild, but he knew that there was nothing to fear. It was unlikely that these people had anything that could harm vapor, nor armor that could withstand what a vampire could do.

Curiously, though the engines flashed and glowed, there was no sound at all. Not that Stephen expected it. The hangar had no air in it, so there was nothing that could transfer sound vibrations.

_What was I expecting, those Shongair drones?_ he chided himself, shivering as he remembered the bone rattling chill propagated by those alien UAVs. It produced some kind of vibration that existed halfway between _felt_ and _heard_. Though he now had a full schematic of the vehicle in his head, he never did find out why it made that "noise."

The large transports were box-like from the back to just behind the cockpit. The cockpit itself was shaped like a downward-facing fighter's cockpit, though it had a much more blunt nose. That blunt "nose" had a turreted gatling gun of some sort attached to it. It reminded Stephen of the United States' Apache gunship, though much more advanced. It was limp looking, seeming to be offline. On either side of the ships were stubby, winglike objects, much too short to be meant for flight. However, judging from the small notches in them, they were meant for carrying weapons.

Two of the transports' six engines tilted downward as they turned around and landed on small, flat struts that extended from underneath, facing their backs to the six vampires.

For a moment, Stephen glanced back and forth, wondering what they were waiting for...then he remembered. They might need to breathe.

Though vampires did not need air to survive, they still required it to speak, so all he could do was tap one of his men on the shoulder and nod toward the transports. The Romanian man nodded and began typing on the small interface in front of him. After typing in the code, he pressed three symbols, and the hangar doors arched shut from all four sides of the opening. As they closed with a jarring vibration, air began to hiss into the chamber from unseen vents, and the area began to warm with the temperature controlled air.

As the room neared normal pressure, the backs of two of the transports snapped loose with a sharp _snap-hiss_ and lowered slowly.

Stephen blinked several times at what he saw piling through the doorway. From each came a huge, hulking suit of armor, trundling down the door and stepping aside, each was easily eight feet in height and had massive tri-barreled guns attached to their right arms.

After them came two somewhat smaller troops. Their armor was heavy, but more humanoid in shape, without the unbelievably massive shoulders, arms, legs, and chests of the others. They carried large rifles, and set up with their positions on either side of the transport, standing with weapons trained on the vampires. Then came eight troops, four from each transport, that actually looked human. Their armor looked no thicker than a bulletproof vest, but covered their entire bodies and looked much stronger as well. They took up kneeling positions beside the other suits of armor.

Stephen watched them bemusedly, knowing that they couldn't hurt him with those weapons. But his relaxation caused him to miss that a large number of light troops had exited the middle transport.

Whoever these guys were, they weren't slouches when it came to deployment.

Another man walked down the ramp from the third transport. He wore only light armor, carried no weapon, held his hands behind his back, and held an air of absolute authority about him. His glowing, blue, T-shaped visor turned to regard the vampires, his expression hidden behind it. Slowly, almost lazily, he held up his palm at head height, and Stephen recognized it as a hand sign. All of the troops around him lowered their weapons, going into semi-relaxed stances, and the two walking tanks lowered their arms, the whine of their spinning guns dying down.

"You must be Stephen," the man said, obviously the commanding officer here. "It is good to meet you."

He spoke perfect English, though the voice seemed electronically tinged. A translator, perhaps?

"You'll have to forgive me for being cautious," the man continued, tilting his head slightly. "It is, after all, better safe than sorry."

"I agree," Buchevsky said dryly, folding his arms. "So you'll have to forgive me for asking you to remove your helmet."

The other man nodded, reaching to either side of his head. He twisted something on both sides, though Buchevsky couldn't see what, and the helmet began to fold back. It arched up and over his head, folding up on his back. He was human, that much was apparent. He was also an older man, evidenced by the light wrinkles around his face and neck. But there were also metallic looking wires that spiderwebbed parts of his face, most likely an interface for his armor.

"As you can see," he said. "We are all human here."

Though Stephen heard the man speaking perfect English, his mouth was not forming the words he was saying. It was definitely a translator forming them for him.

Buchevsky quirked an eyebrow, looking at the other armored troops. The older man took noticed and nodded towards them. As helmets folded back with metallic clinks, it became clear that he was telling the truth. Buchevsky's comrades relaxed visibly at that. The older man walked forward and offered his hand.

"High Admiral Joseph Acheiron," he said, pronouncing the "J" more like a "Y."

Buchevsky looked briefly at the man, who was shorter than him by a half-inch or so, despite the armor. Then he followed suit.

"Stephen Buchevsky, vampire," he rumbled, grasping the Admiral's hand.

* * *

><p>Less than an hour later, Buchevsky felt like his head was spinning.<p>

A short explanation convinced him that it would be much faster to ride on the Admiral's ship, the...what was it? Right, the _Abydos Prophet_. How they managed to travel so unbelievably fast was still beyond him. Even with a Hegemony-level education, their explanation for the "Stellar Drive" and its technology all sounded like technobabble to him. Even more mind boggling was the idea of a human civilization, from _Earth_, of all places, living in literally _hundreds_ of interstellar nations? Intergalactic space travel? Hell, even the fact that their civilizations have been around for tens of thousands of years? He just could not wrap his mind around that, and probably never would.

From what the Admiral had said, Earth was their holy grail; their ancestral homeworld, lost for milennia. Aliens were anathema to them, warranting just short of extermination of almost any they found.

After what he had just gone through, Buchevsky just couldn't dredge up even an ounce of sympathy for alienkind. The images of Washington D.C. turned into a crater...his daughters...family...ex-wife; divorced or not, he still loved her. They all continued to haunt his memory. If the aliens in the "Akkadian" galaxy were anything like the Hegemony, he understood perfectly why they they would all but declare war on non-humans.

Yet, though they had no problem with letting the Shongair be blown all to hell, they weren't underway to the Shongairi worlds. Having already caught up with the other dreadnoughts, they could have easily done away with the worlds and returned to Earth in minutes...unless something else had come up.

That's what he had come to find out. The several dozen vampires tasked as the crew of the dreadnoughts stood or sat in a long room with an equally long table, with many chairs and small protuberances at the center line of the table. Admiral Acheiron and two soldiers sat nearby. Unlike during their first meeting, Acheiron wore a dark blue navy uniform, decorated with layers of medals on either side. Oddly, though, he still had those wires on his skin.

"Just to be clear," the Admiral began gravely. "Please be aware that none of you have been kept out of the loop." None of the vampires even stirred. Being a non-breather had a way of making you rather patient. "We have avoided any explanations until now so that we could ensure that everyone knows at one time, and that any misunderstandings are rectified."

Now he gestured a gloved hand to one of the vampires, a shorter one, though he had an aura of sheer fury, despite the fact that his demeanor was calm.

"The Shongair know that we are coming," Vlad Drakulya began grimly. "They knew even before we set out."

At this, Stephen sat ramrod straight, his eyes going wide. Knew? How could they _know_ that?

He was not the only one affected by the news. Many of the others murmured in surprise and shock. Admiral Acheiron's frown deepened. He leaned his elbows on the table, putting his fingertips together in a pensive position, but he said nothing.

With a glance from the Prince of Wallachia, the talking died out.

"It was not something we expected to happen, of course," he continued. "But it occurred nonetheless. But as to why..."

Vlad paused for a moment, a dark shadow briefly crossing his face. Buchevsky could see the beginning of that dangerous glow in his eyes. For just a second, he saw nothing but Vlad the Impaler, Count Drakulya. But it only lasted a second. Then, he blinked and shook his head, and Stephen saw Mircea Basarab once more.

"It was my mistake," he said simply. No one said anything. The two breather soldiers shifted uncomfortably, but the Admiral remained as still as the vampires. "As we made our rounds, preparing for the h-jump, we failed to notice the sole survivor of our attack."

Vlad shook his head once more, but this time it was merely human frustration, not the darker fury inside him.

"We had thought them all dead," Vlad continued. "The atmosphere had been completely drained. But as there are certain...luxuries we no longer required, we- I that is- neglected to consider the possibility of pressure suits aboard."

Several individuals looked to each other. Buchevsky merely closed his eyes and lowered his head slowly. It was an honest mistake. He doubted that any of the vampires utterly avoided such mistakes, and Vlad had only recently "rediscovered" who he was. Nonetheless, though he did not know exactly how the Shongair knew of the attack so early, Stephen had a general idea of how it happened.

"We did not notice until weeks into the journey, relative time," Vlad was saying. "We had, of course, left the communications systems online, as all of you did, so that we could still speak to one another. I found out when I saw the lone Shongair, long dead of asphyxiation, laying on the ground beside the console."

"_Pardon the interruption, Prince Vlad,"_ an unearthly, disembodied voice said. It was an unsettling, rusty voice that caused almost everyone in the room to jump...everyone except the Admiral. It took Stephen a moment to remember that the ship had its own AI; Abydos. It was easy to forget about him until he started talking.

"_...But I have been reviewing the information from one of the "neural educators" you provided,"_ the voice continued, unperturbed. _"I was under the impression that communication with objects outside of hyperspace is impossible, and I find it unlikely that a lone Shongair with control of only one of a dreadnought's systems could find a friendly vessel before his air ran out."_

"You are right, Abydos," Vlad said after briefly composing himself. "He did not send it to a ship, however. In fact, I doubt that he even knew we were in h-space."

Now Vlad's expression darkened visibly.

"A Shongair vessel in h-space does not have the sheer accuracy required to communicate with an object at, for all intents and purposes, a standstill compared to it. However, it has the accuracy to reach an object directly in front of the ship."

"He just sent the communication like that?" Stephen blurted, despite himself. "Then what's the problem? The message won't get there for years!"

"The Hegemony has never tried sending a transmission like that," another vampire, one that used to be a part of Buchevsky's squad, said. "In n-space, it would travel at the speed of light, but it started out over eight times its normal traveling speed."

"Which is part of the reason we did not detect it at first," Vlad finished. "According to the log, the transmission reached its destination three standard months, relative time, _before_ it was sent, which is six of our months in the past."

The room was deadly quiet.

"How is that possible?" the Admiral spoke up at last, his frown replaced by a quizzical expression.

The vampire shook his head. "I do not know. I only know that the Shongair have known for three years that we were coming. Had we continued our journey, they would almost certainly have blown all of us from the sky."

Buchevsky would have swallowed if he was still a breather. There are a lot of things vampires can survive; space, bullets, crashes...but being blown up without warning would have, without a doubt, sealed the deal for him, and everyone else.

"Then what do we do now?" another vampire spoke up, his accent identifying him as a Romanian.

"That much is simple," The Admiral said, his bright tone drawing all eyes to him.

He lowered his arms, revealing the slightest hint of a smile on his face.

"They will expect commandeered Shongairi dreadnoughts to arrive in a matter of years, not a fleet of far more advanced ships within months, weeks, or perhaps even days."

The vampires all looked to each other, unsure, then back at Acheiron.

"You did not think this was the only ship I brought with me now, did you?" He said smugly, though his expression quickly darkened. "My people have spent millennia searching for Earth, our home. I doubt anyone would begrudge you your world to keep, having spent so long there, but we will not stand by and watch it threatened and attacked without provocation. Though I am still awaiting word from my government, I have no doubt as to what they will say."

Admiral Acheiron rose. "I thank you for your time, gentlemen. It is approximately a twenty minute flight to Earth from here. If you would accompany me, I think you would wish to see how the situation has changed in the three years since your departure."

With that, he left them to digest the implications of what he had just said.

* * *

><p>"Emperor Ranmanath, you had best have a very good reason for this."<p>

The council room was abuzz with activity. Scholars and nation leaders had been called to an emergency meeting. Those off-world were represented by holographic images, transmitted across such staggering interstellar distances by the Ansible network that enveloped the entire Hegemony.

The Barthoni that had just spoken gave a withering glare in the direction of the holographic Shongair across from him.

It was two standard months since two shocks had struck the Hegemony. First was the discovery that the race that alarmed them far more than any in the past, the people of KU-197-20, known to the local sentients as "Earth," had advanced to a Level 2 civilization without blowing themselves to nuclear oblivion. Second, and far more ominous, was that the very same race had managed to defeat a Shongair colonization fleet, a fleet meant for the conquest of _three_ worlds! The council had reprimanded the Shongair on the surface, but it was clearly only half-hearted. Inwardly, they were smugly satisfied that such a race would be out of their hair.

More than anything, the Barthoni scholar was not angry at Emperor Ranmanath for calling the meeting. He was angry because it meant that worse news was still to come, something that the whole council feared.

"Kalak vaan, Et'ha Ranmanath," a hulking, reptilian Cleptai said in his harsh language. No translator was needed for Scholar A'met'ne'ka'na. Being the easiest language to learn, his species' language had become the second language of nearly every race, and Scholars of the Council were required to learn it.

"Unfortunately, more "bad news" is exactly why I called this meeting, Scholar," The Shongair replied, his ears lowered ever-so-slightly in semi-respect.

"Our Ansible has just finished processing the report filed by the late Fleet Commander Thikair's ship," he said bluntly.

The room went very quiet.

""Ane" Thikair, Et'ha Ranmanath?" A'met'ne'ka'na whispered, the scales on his shoulders beginning to rise in alarm.

"That cannot be possible," the birdlike Kleptu scholar squawked. "Humans were only a level two civilization, they could not have-"

"But they did," Ranmanath interrupted, beginning to sound irritated. "Every last Shongair in that fleet is dead."

The massive, circular room erupted in chaos. Scholars from every race, whether present or holographic, yelled in alarm and disbelief, demanding, pleading, and threatening. Eventually the Cleptai scholar's booming, harsh voice called for order before nodding to the Emperor to continue.

His ears, by now, had begun to flatten out to the side, as though he was just now realizing the extreme severity of what he was saying.

"For now, I must make this brief, but expect a full report in your offices via ansible within a day-twelfth or so. I must prepare my Empire for what is coming."

The murmuring started again, but A'met'ne'ka'na cleared his throat once, and it quieted.

"We are, as of now, unaware of how it happened, but there is no mistake. Of the dreadnoughts we sent to Earth, at least six have been commandeered." Before the commotion could restart itself, he quickly added, "Again, we do not know, as of now, how the humans managed it. But we certainly know why, thanks to the psychological report at the tail end of the transmission."

Ranmanath's ears rose to their full height, highlighting how deadly serious the situation was.

"The humans are aggressive, _very_ aggressive," He looked blandly at several herbivorous scholars. "That may sound...doubtable coming from a Shongair, but I assure you, our racial aggression is nothing compared to their's. I can promise you, as well, that they will not stop until each and every one of us is wiped from the face of the galaxy for the perceived affront, the unforgivable offense, they have taken."

The scholars' rumble of alarm became one of reluctant agreement.

"I do not need to remind you what a race like humanity can do with Hegemony technology after another sixteen standard years alone. I do not even wish to consider what would happen after a hundred!"

As the scholars whispered to each other, the Emperor became distracted by something off-screen. A voice could just barely be heard speaking to him. After a moment, he turned back toward the Council's gigantic chamber.

"I have just been informed that the processing of some of the report has been completed," His ears flattened into a wry smile. "Normally, I would hardly be this open with such information. But this threat, this _human_ threat, far outweighs any contrary reason I could have for sharing this. I am sending the humans' psychological reports via Ansible now. The files should reach everyone's neural receptors any second..."

The whispering and murmuring stopped, before quickly ascending in volume. Again, A'met'ne'ka'na called for order, having to yell for a full ten minutes before everyone quieted, but even his voice seemed quivery, as he had also received the reports.

"I know what you must be thinking," Ranmanath continued in a carefully controlled tone. "And I agree. By our standards, even a sub-average human would be declared clinically and dangerously insane. And you can see from the information gathered how incredibly and uncontrollably vindictive and aggressive humans can be."

"This...cannot be...but if these reports are to be believed, none of our weapons could stand up to them as a Level 2 civilization!" the apelike Amranth representative shouted. "How can we stand against them as a Level 1!"

Several other Scholars nodded in agreement, but others attempted to shout him down, proposing ideas of every caliber; ranging from plausible to unlikely to downright stupid.

"There is a way," the Emperor said quietly. The Council quieted somewhat, if nothing else, so that they could find a way to contradict the Shongair's idea.

"Our report was _quite_ detailed when it came to the humans' battle strategy, military doctrine, and much more," he explained. "Our best option against an enemy of such..._unique_ psychology and sound doctrine...is to think like them."

Several Scholars glanced to each other and back to Ranmanath, their gazes demanding further explanation.

"For instance, humans appear to have a heavy combat vehicle called a "tank." As the report writers said earlier into the campaign, evidently before they realized just how dangerous humans are, merely putting explosive-reactive armor and a railgun on our own GEVs would make them far superior to human vehicles."

"Quite simply," he continued. "Our GEVs were simply ill-equipped to deal with other combat vehicles, our air force unprepared for air-to-air fighting, our reconnaissance drones unable to properly defend themselves, and our troops untrained for combat with a similarly equipped enemy. However, if we were to copy their designs with our much more advanced technology..."

Murmuring began anew, but this time it was relieved whispers, preliminary discussions of how each nation could alter their forces to combat this new threat.

"Emperor Ranmanath," the Barthoni Scholar said haltingly, not believing what was about to come out of his own mouth. "You bring a...good...argument to the table. But as for the rest of this information you have given us, we can sort that out for ourselves. Perhaps now would be a better time to finish our other orders of business."

"I realize how inadequate that must sound, after what the Emperor has told us," he added quickly, noting the rather sour looks he was attracting. "But, quite simply, if we do not keep our Hegemony running as we should, we need not worry about humanity. We will have collapsed long before they arrive..."

* * *

><p>"<em>Lord Emperor, sir?"<em>

"_Yes, what is it?"_

"_Pardon me for questioning you, but-"_

"_Yes, yes, get on with it."_

"_Is it wise to give them all of these designs? The rest of the Hegemony is as unprepared for humanity as we are. Surely it would be in our best interest, and for the interest of the Empire's plans, to-"_

"_To what, let the Hegemony fall to humanity? No, letting those barbarians wipe us all out would be very...counterproductive. We will let the Hegemony fight, we will let the humans fight, and we will fight alongside the Hegemony, and gain their trust. But when the dust clears, and the war weary nations prepare to retire..."_

"_...Then we strike, Lord Emperor?"_

"_Indeed. _Then_ we strike."_

* * *

><p><em>AN: 'Sup everybody!_

_As you may have noticed, my story writing has been crap lately. Precursors is yet another story added to the "dead" list, so now I've adopted a new strategy. From this point forward, I will only begin posting stories once I have written a chapter or two, to ensure that the story won't fall apart later on. This is actually why I haven't posted anything for Phantoms of the Present in a while. I actually have a chapter finished, but I would like to complete one or two more, for aforementioned reasons and so that I have a good buffer zone of chapters, in case of future delays (such as the ones that made me have only one chapter of Phantoms instead of three or more in this amount of time)._

_Until my next post, cya e'rebody. Read, Review, and Enjoy. ^^_

_PS: In case you haven't noticed, this is a crossover with my Hundred Empires (adapted from the Ogame and Zorg Empires browser games, thus why I can post this story on a fanfiction site). Since I don't have the luxury of posting the various bios and info for the Akkadian Empire here, you can (if you want) look for them on deviantART. I can even give you links. Or, you can also just wait, read, and figure it out as the story goes on. ;)  
><em>


	2. Chapter 2

Into the Void

Chapter 2

**Earth – Terran Empire Capital**

**Abydos Prophet, flagship of Warfleet Abaddon**

Twenty minutes. It took twenty minutes to cross a distance that had taken three years for a dreadnought to travel.

If Buchevsky had been told that a few days ago, he'd have laughed until he cried. But now...he was standing in the bridge of the _Abydos Prophet_, staring down at the small blue and green sphere of the Earth, slowly expanding on the massive viewscreen at the front of the room.

For the duration of the amazingly short trip, he'd questioned the ship's AI, Abydos, about the origins of the "Akkadian" Empire, and of the other empires they coexisted with.

Thankfully, the AI had been around humans enough to know how to condense complicated info into a simplified manner that not only took little time to explain, but was easily understood by the less technologically inclined. Even with the vast knowledge implanted in his brain, Stephen was no scientist. He didn't understand half of it, and most of what he did understand was only limited. Even then, a Hegemony-level education paled in comparison to the training required to understand the vastly superior Akkadian technology.

They weren't called the _Hundred_ Empires of Man for no reason. There were, quite literally, around a hundred empires, though most were vassaled under one of the twelve "Greater Empires."

That was another thing he could scarcely wrap his head around. There weren't just the few million on Earth, and the billions before the Shongair came. No...there were trillions upon trillions upon uncounted trillions of humans, living in vast interstellar nations with technology that was any sci-fi fanatic's dream.

"Akeridai," the capital of its namesake empire, was a planet of robotics, cybernetics, and exceedingly advanced medical technology...and a good thing, too, if the pictures Abydos had shown were accurate. The whole planet was a huge arctic tundra, never rising above the freezing point of water, and with no native multi-cellular life. But the cities...good God those were magnificent cities. From the outside alone, they were impressive: gigantic domes stretching for miles into the sky, and much more in every direction...including down.

Inside each was a city that seemed like MC Escher's heaven. Buildings, the smaller ones reaching twice as far into the sky as the Petronas Towers (which had miraculously survived the Shongair bombardment), arched from the ground, the concave ceiling, and even the walls. Trains traveled on invisible tracks made from magnetic fields, racing to and fro at speeds of one thousand and two hundred kilometers per hour, a brisk eight hundred miles per hour!

That was only the beginning of it. The pictures went on, barely giving Buchevsky enough time to see them in detail before moving on. It was obvious that they weren't altered. They were actual pictures of worlds that he could only imagine.

Unfortunately, that was not foremost on Stephen's mind. He looked out to the expanding sphere that was his home, seeing quite a change from when he had left.

Lights glittered on the dark side of the moon, which was facing the _Abydos Prophet_. It was Lunar Base One, the Akkadian security outpost that coordinated their unbelievably fast ships and looked for any "surprises"- any Hegemony ships that were en route to follow up the Shongair's colonization.

Above the moon was a much more...alien-looking piece of construction. It was a giant, skeletal ring. Buchevsky didn't know exactly how big it was, but if it was visible so clearly from this far out, it had to be pretty damn _big_. Not only that, but, from what Abydos had shown him, that ring would get even bigger once it was finished. They called it a "Jumpgate," like something from a series Stephen had seen before...Stargate, he thought. There was something from the show that seemed to match a Jumpgate, something really big, big enough to allow ships to travel through it. He couldn't remember what it was called, but he was sure it would fit here.

"Tady Lunar Jedna," a voice crackled from a console. It sounded like a human language, but not one that Buchevsky was familiar with. "Příchozí lodi, identifikujte se."

"Sending priority codes now," Admiral Acheiron said from nearby in English, nodding to a crewman. "If you would, Lunar Base, please activate translation protocols for the benefit of our guests?"

"Of course, Admiral," the voice said, in English this time. "It wasn't hard to tell that it was you, sir. Abydos is...a bit hard _not_ to notice."

A light scraping sound emenated from the room, Abydos' mechanical chuckle. The admiral gave a small smile as well.

"That may be the case, Lieutenant," Acheiron said. "But...rules are rules...Abydos, prepare the shuttles, I presume our guests would like to see their world again."

The Admiral looked over to see Stephen leaning on the edge of the bridge's top level. His gaze was distant as he looked out towards his homeworld.

Buchevsky's mind was not on his home, however. His mind lingered darkly on the other item that Abydos had spoken of: the Akkadian plans for the Shongair.

He wanted the Shongair to be wiped from the face of the galaxy. He wanted their worlds burned and tortured. The flames of their planets, their land, their people...that, and only that, would quench the burning fire of vengeance inside of him. Vlad could not have reacted any better, his anger was a hundred times more than Buchevsky's, and his hatred made Stephen's seem like a weakly flickering candle in comparison.

It was obvious now that using the dreadnoughts would be counterintuitive. The Akkadians, however, had more than enough firepower and manpower to eliminate the Shongair once and for all...but they weren't going to. No, instead they were merely going to "subdue" them, make them a "client" race of humanity. The Shongair were beneath that, beneath any semblance of humane treatment. They were vermin fit for nothing but use as kindling for their own burning homes..._and the Akkadians wanted to spare them_!

Why was Vlad complacent for all of this? He was the one who wanted, much more than Buchevsky, to destroy the Shongair! He had heard the full version of the Akkadian plan, not just Abydos' summary. So they must have said something that drastically changed the situation. What could have changed it that much?

"Mister Buchevsky," Acheiron said, jolting the vampire from his reverie. When Stephen looked to the older man, he no longer wore his wry smile, but a dark, grim expression instead. "If you would please join me in the conference room, there is a matter that you and I must discuss before we make landfall."

It seemed that, almost on cue, he was about to get some answers.

* * *

><p>"I want no disturbances of any nature," the admiral commanded. "And I mean <em>no<em> disturbances. Nothing is important enough to warrant an interruption, understood?"

The two soldiers at the door looked to each other, expressions hidden behind their glowing eyepieces, but their body language evidenced confusion. After a moment, however, they nodded and stood to the side at attention with the quiet whirring of servos. The silver door then opened.

Maybe Stephen was a bit too much of a sci-fi junkie, but he half expected doors that slid opened with a _swoosh_, not mundane powered doors like the ones you'd find at a Wal-mart.

Once Buchevsky and Acheiron entered the room, the former noticed two things. First was that Vlad was there. He was apparently right so far about being told the whole plan, but if that was the case, why would Vlad be there to hear it again? Perhaps he was unconvinced by whatever reasoning the Akkadians had for this, and wanted to voice his opinion on it?

_No, that couldn't be it_, Buchevsky thought wryly. _If Vlad the Impaler wanted his opinion shown about how much he didn't like this plan, half the people on this ship would have snapped necks by now...or he'd be fried trying to do so. Either way, he _definitely_ wouldn't wait for a time like this_.

The second thing he noticed was the look on Vlad's face. There were a lot of things you tell about a man's state of mind from looking into his eyes, and that was amplified with vampires. Yet Vlad's face was unreadable...as always, there was that palpable sense of darkness just beneath the surface, but beyond that was nothing.

Buchevsky's thoughts were interrupted by Acheiron clearing his throat. He briefly wondered if things like coughing and throat clearing also ran through the man's translator before being heard. Then he realized why he'd gotten such a good look at Vlad's eyes...the man was staring right back at him, his eyes' fathomless depths bored into Stephen, making him shiver a little.

"Gentlemen," Acheiron began, sitting down and going straight into what seemed to be his default position; leaning on his elbows with his hands folded together. "We will begin once-"

He was interrupted by the door opening again, revealing a silver wall that had not been there when Stephen walked through the door.

"Ah, Captain, how good of you to join us. Please, come in."

The wall then bent down and stepped inside, revealing itself to be a giant, armored tank of a man. Easily eleven feet tall at least, the man wore the heaviest armor Buchevsky had ever seen. His chest alone, without counting the massive shoulders, were wider than the length of the vampire's arm at least twice over. The man's gauntleted fingers alone were nearly the thickness of a normal man's wrist, and Stephen could only imagine what the armored hulk's wrists compared to. His legs looked like metal tree trunks, and made the deck groan under the armored hulk's massive weight with each step. He also wore a helmet. It was silver, like the rest of the armor, and resembled a Greek hoplite's helmet in shape, but with blue eyepieces. It even had a plume on top, but it was obviously made of metal, not hair. Buchevsky could only guess at what it was.

The hulking figure surveyed the room after nodding to the admiral. He then clunked over to a corner and stood there, his massive hands folded in front of him.

"This is Honored Captain Ulrich Valschika," Acheiron said, indicating the walking tank. "He is our resident Hoplon commander, and has well over six hundred years of battle experience."

The shock in the room could be felt. Six hundred years! No normal man could live that long, not even someone with Akkadian level technology!

Even Vlad looked like a fish out of water, opening his mouth to speak, but evidently not able to find his voice. The admiral merely gave a smirk.

"I have invited him merely to observe," Acheiron continued. "And also to give advice when necessary."

The aging man waved a hand in dismissal, seeming not to notice everyone's shock.

"Anyhow, I digress," he admonished himself, thankfully preparing to jump to the meat of the matter. "More than likely, Abydos has told you a little about our plans for the Shongair, but I would like to elaborate on what he has told you."

Buchevsky grimaced, barely succeeding to wrench his attention from the "Hoplon." He would ask for clarification later about that. The only way such a thing was possible would be that the Akkadians had vampires of their own...but that couldn't be, could it?

_In the meantime,_ Stephen thought to himself. _I think I know what Vlad's doing. He's making it _look_ like he'll listen. But I bet he's gonna jump in at the first opportunity and make it _very_ clear what he thinks of the Akkadian "plan."_

"At this moment in time, I have no doubt that you think that we are usurping the authority of Earth's many nations," Acheiron began. "However, I can, at this time, assure you that this is not the case. Abydos?"

The lights in the room dimmed somewhat, and the middle of the table everyone sat or stood around sprouted a display of rectangles hovering in the air; a hologram.

"Unfortunately, President Howell was unable to be reached earlier on," the admiral continued. That was no surprise to Stephen. Howell had managed to keep an entire state of America together in the midst of the greatest crisis in human history. It would have been an insult for him to have been anything but president!

"But he has agreed to join us now, graciously putting off some more...local business issues of his. Mr. President, if you please..."

With that, a man appeared on the screen, and Stephen recognized him right away.

"I have to say, admiral, I'm still not used to speaking through these holograms..." the small man, seeming egregiously unfit for leadership externally, said in a cautious tone.

"It will come, Mr. Howell," The admiral said with a sympathetic look. The two ignored the non-breathing elements of their audience for the moment. "A year is hardly enough time to become truly accustomed to our technology, particularly since it is the minority of technology on your world, and will remain so until our own fabrication processes completely replace those of the Shongairi industrial complexes."

_That's right,_ Stephen thought, putting off his temporary surprise at the Akkadian acquaintance with Earth's governments for the moment. _Vlad left both the Industrial Ships _and_ the neural educators there. Damn...I never thought that lightspeed jet-lag would set in this early. I guess that's just the consequence of humanity's sudden jump from the twenty-first century to five hundred years- give or take a few- later. And with a whole intergalactic nation helping them, that time lag just got amplified a thousand times over. They could have a space elevator now, for all I know!_

"Anywho," the President continued dismissively (the admiral and President both seemed to do that a lot, similar personalities perhaps?). "I suppose I should start by telling you this; I know all about you, _Vlad Drakulya_, you and your vampires."

Vlad gave a shrug. "That is not surprising, Gov- excuse me, _President_ Howell. I instructed Pieter to notify authorities as he saw fit, should something..."unusual" come up."

"And the sudden appearance of milennia-ahead human nations is on the "unusual" list, I take it?" Acheiron interjected with an amused grin.

Howell nodded neutrally, not irritated but not amused either. "Evidently it was. But that is only incidental in terms of how our plans for the Shongair have changed."

_Changed? How could that be?_ Stephen thought. His "Marine" demeanor kicked in, locking his expression as a granite, unreadable face. But inside, he fought to keep his composure. Whatever this change was, it was big enough to warrant a foreign nation to send an admiral, of all people, to intercept the commandeered dreadnoughts.

The man on the multiple screens gave a slight sigh. "You could say that these last three years have been the perfect cool off for the human race. Quite simply, once the rage subsided, our governments (the ones reformed so far, at least) decided against our long-range plans for a more damaging retaliatory strike. However, the big change came when the Akkadians arrived. Needless to say, we panicked. Our infrastructure had just barely begun to rebuild, our defensive systems were only rudimentary, and our populace was in shambles. Our relief, and confusion, at finding that they were _human_ was far greater than the original panic."

He shook his head, disbelieving whatever events he remembered. "For your sake, I will leave the explanations on that topic and cut to the chase. To begin with, I am sorry to tell you, but those three years you spent en route to the Shongairi worlds were in vain. We're not going to destroy the Shongair."

Buchevsky jumped up, immediately furious. To their credit, no one started. But Vlad did not even react. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Stephen was somewhat disturbed by that fact.

"Let me tell you something, President Howell," he said through clenched teeth. "In only day one, the Shongair killed _millions_, then proceeded, over the course of months, to kill _billions_. There isn't a single person on Earth who hasn't lost a brother, a sister, a father, a mother, or some family member. They killed billions of humans, including..."

The vampire trailed off. He was perilously close to breaking down. The memories of his family were still painfully clear.

"Including my family," he finished. "The Shongair showed no mercy. They tried to destroy every last one of us. Why on God's green Earth do you want to spare them?"

"To prove that we are the better men," a voice said. To Stephen's utter surprise, it was Vlad.

The former Marine turned on the Prince of Wallachia.

"You were the one that wanted us to do this!" Buchevsky shouted accusingly.

Before he even knew what was happening, Vlad was holding him in the air by the shirt.

"_I will not become a monster again,_" Vlad hissed, his face bearing a fearsome expression. Then, after a moment, it softened a bit. "But, my Stephen, will you become that monster? Remember my people, Stephen. Was I not every bit as angry for their sake as you are for your people's sake?"

Someone cleared their voice from off to the side. The two vampires looked over to see Acheiron and Howell both staring intently at them.

"Gentlemen," the President said gravely. "At risk of sounding heartless, your personal opinions in this matter are immaterial. Whatever your feelings are, whether good or bad, we will move forward with our current plan unless unforeseen circumstances arise."

Vlad closed his eyes, letting loose a volcanic sigh before letting Buchevsky back down to his feet.

"What would this plan be?" Vlad said. His eyes opened, and _Count Drakulya_ disappeared, again replaced by Mircea Basarab.

"That would be under my authority to say," the admiral declared quickly, standing up. "Pardon me, Mister President, but I believe it is best that I explain, as Earth still has a long way to go before it can contribute."

Howell opened his mouth briefly to say something, but then the on-screen image closed its mouth and nodded.

"For the sake of security," Acheiron began. "I will be general about it. However, you vampires are a rare breed, at least on Earth, so you are entitled to _some_ information."

"The Akkadian fleet here in this galaxy is not a conquest fleet, and I doubt that my government will authorize any such fleet here. However, we have two small fleets en route now, set to arrive in approximately three days. A larger reserve fleet from one of Akeridai's vassals will arrive..."

The admiral looked at his watch, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

"Scratch that, gentlemen. It seems that they arrived during our absence and have already begun preparations for the mission. Anyway, back to my original point..."

_What, his watch tells time in days, too?_ Buchevsky wondered. _You'd think they would have something a little more...high tech by now._

"This is not a mission of extermination," Acheiron continued. "Though I have no doubts that you have grasped this by now, it is imperative that I make this clear. In fact, strictly speaking, this is not going to be an action by the Akkadian Empire at all. It is our effort to defend a potential ally...and our homeworld. We will begin the campaign at the nearest Shongairi world, where their colony fleet was most likely sent from. Abydos, if you would?"

"_Of course, admiral_."

President Howell's face disappeared, replaced by a view of the galaxy. No doubt the President was still on the line, and was now seeing what the rest of them were seeing.

The imaginary camera giving a view of the galaxy zoomed in to view a single shred of a galactic arm in detail. Several red circles appeared in a seemingly random fashion.

"These are the Shongairi colonies that we are aware of, so far," the admiral explained, gesturing towards the screens. "Our scout ships picked up subspace chatter coming to and from these worlds. There seems to be only a handful of subspace streams coming from each planet. On top of this, the streams are nearly constant, containing hundreds of thousands of _millions_ of smaller micro signals within them. Abydos?"

Red lines connected each planet. Some had only a single line connecting them, others looked like the epicenter of a celestial spiderweb.

"As illustrated here, the web of subspace streams form something that should be familiar to you. No takers? Very well, I will tell you...it is a telephone web."

_A telephone web_, Buchevsky thought, putting aside his anger, replacing it with interest. _That makes sense. The Shongair have to use Ansibles...if I understand all of this technobabble right in my head. They can't have many ship-based ones. Or, at least, they can't be as active or anywhere near as powerful as the ground-based ones._

"As with most of you, I know of the Shongairi dependence on Ansibles, and their inability to construct efficient mobile subspace communications systems," Acheiron continued. "And their "router worlds", the systems that route a large number of interplanetary communiques, are especially vulnerable to attack. Given that the average speed of a Shongair ship is well below even the slowest Akkadian freighter, we will only have trouble subduing the individual worlds. Once we have dominated their ability to communicate, updates as to our progress through their worlds will be impossible."

The screens returned to show Howell again.

"That, gentlemen, is our grand strategy. Simple, yes, but we will not know more until the first attack begins..." the admiral looked at his watch again. "In approximately thirty four hours. President Howell, I will give you another update two hours before deployment. Will you be available?"

The President of the United States nodded. "I will be, Admiral. Until then..." The screen switched off.

Now Acheiron turned his attention to Vlad and Buchevsky.

"I do not know exactly what you feel about this, Stephen Buchevsky," the admiral said with steel and iron in his voice. "Quite frankly, unless it directly affects this mission, I do not care, either. Should your vengeance be satisfied with the submission of the Shongair, then that is all well and good, but I will not let loose another human monster...even if he no longer breathes."

Then he was gone, his steps echoing down the hallway.

Vlad and Stephen exchanged a look that only vampires could give one another, then the much older vampire left as well, his footsteps silent to any normal human.

"_You and I have more in common than I originally thought,_" an alien voice rumbled.

Buchevsky felt a chill crawling up his dead spine as he turned to face the living wall, the walking tank in the corner of the room. He had forgotten it was there. Was it a robot? How else could it stay so still for so long?

"What do you mean?" the vampire shakily said back. Stephen Buchevsky took pride in his deep, authoritative voice, but his sounded like a mouse's squeak next to that monster of a voice.

Captain Ulrich did not respond, but merely left the room in three great, loping, floor-shuddering strides.

"_You must have a lot in common with him,_" Abydos said, sounding almost bemused. "_You are the first human, aside from Admiral Acheiron, the he has talked to in nearly a month._"

The ship did not say any more. As the lone vampire exited, he pondered about the possible implications of what had transpired in that room.

It seemed that, once again, humanity was going to war.

* * *

><p><strong>Night Side of Earth<strong>

**Ark Hammer, vessel of 51****st**** Chernovan Reserve Siege Fleet**

_How deceptively peaceful,_ Commander Athless thought as he looked out at the legendary homeworld of mankind...Earth. The oceans and great, green land masses of the world were invisible, since the commander's ship, the massive battleship _Ark Hammer_, was on Earth's night side. However, the few cities on the planet that had been rebuilt shone like stars. It was a beautiful scene.

_So much different from Chernova Prime,_ he thought pensively. He was right. He had lived much of his life on the Chernovan Empire's capital. The planet was far more developed than Earth, even before the invasion. The Tower World, some called it. Chernova's spires extended well into the heavens, most were visible even from space. The world's crisp, chill air was a refreshing thing...and something Commander Athless missed more than a little, at the moment. He shivered slightly, thinking of the pict he had seen of Earth's "Sahara Desert." How could any sane human live in such extreme heat?

For the moment, he pushed that thought aside, tearing himself back to the here and the now.

The _Ark Hammer_ was an older model of battleship, Retribution-class, currently being phased out by newer, more automated versions. The newer ships were of the same class, but had much improved armor, shields, weapons, engines...you name it, the new model had it better. As the situation stood, Athless' ship should have been delegated to expeditions, not playing at intergalactic police officer. Still, it made sense. The Shongair were apparently hopelessly primitive in comparison to Akkadian technology. And it _was_ technically an expedition. So why not send the older ships, and leave the better ones in reserve, just in case?

_It isn't as though my ship is not capable,_ Athless thought with a light, amused snort. In fact, his ship was overqualified, if anything. Forty kilometers of Thalite, Chorite, and big guns, fully capable of taking on a fleet on its own, was more than capable as far as a ship is concerned. Added to that was the fearsome Ion Mortar hidden in the mighty vessel's middle-bow. The massive contraption was usually carried on gigantic Akkadian Mythos-class Destroyers, eighty kilometer long monsters of warships, not on a battleship. Combining a swirling jacket of ions with a multi-ton fusion shell made for a deadly combination; a weapon that could disrupt tectonic plates on its _lower_ settings, let alone maximum power.

There were six other battleships in the rag-tag fleet, assembled mostly from fleets that had suffered losses on ill-fated expeditions and the like, as well as multiple light and heavy frigates, three Honorable-class assault destroyers (a far cry from Akkadian Destroyers, but thankfully much more numerous and cost-effective), two carriers, a single, gigantic missile destroyer, and the _Vigilance and Victory_, the flagship and pride of the Chernovan navy; a Sanguine-class battlecruiser.

All of this firepower was present...and yet the commander still felt a touch of awe when he saw the biggest guns in the galaxy, the _Abydos Prophet_; eighty-one point seven-three kilometers and millions of tons of literal "twisted steel and sex appeal." That ship was the reason why the Chernovan fleet was largely staying behind on the first sortie. When the Akkadians went into battle, they went for the shock and awe...big time.

As much as it burned his pride to admit it, Athless had to acknowledge that, pound for pound, true and blue Akkadian ships hit harder than his old rust bucket, even their battleships, despite being half the size of a Retribution-class (a _measly_ twenty five kilometers). In fact, that was the case with most Akkadian ships. Sure, they were smaller than Chernovan ships, but they were scrappy nonetheless.

"Commander, we have a message from up top," the comms officer chimed, jolting the commander from his reverie.

"Put it to my console," the man said simply and with a shrug. His vest ruffled a bit with the movement. The uniform seemed like a hybrid of officer's attire and armor...which of course, it was. The black and gray material was actually sheet metal, and turned as rigid as Thalite when hit with a bullet, ions, plasma, or even a punch. As long as he wore that uniform, Athless, who was starting to look past his prime, and feel the part as well, could scrap with the best of them.

A light beep emenated from the commander's console, and a holo of the message appeared.

_Officer's meeting aboard the _Prophet_, Commander-level and above. One hour. Continue on-schedule until that time._

_Simple enough,_ Athless supposed.

"Lieutenant-Major, you have the bridge," the commander ordered as he spun on his heel to leave.

Preparations were still under way, but it was obvious now...

...Humanity was going to war once again.

* * *

><p><em>AN: 'Sup ev'rybody!_

_Hmm...honestly, not much to say about this one, except that it's a blast to write so far. ;)_

_R&R as usual. Till next time!_


	3. Chapter 3

Into the Void

Chapter 3

**Earth – Terran Empire Capital**

**Abydos Prophet, Flagship of Warfleet Abaddon/Command Center of Akkadian 53****rd**** Collaboration Fleet**

"All ships, full system check. Call in once finished. Abydos?"

"_Impulse drive systems at 100% capacity. Combustion arrays two through eight at full burn. Stellar drive on standby. Sensors on standby to initiate preprogrammed scan routines_."

"Excellent. Weapons?"

"_Gauss decks A through F are now online, decks I through Z are on standby. Plasma decks C through F are online and scanning. All ion arrays are online. Ion Mortars-_"

Admiral Acheiron pinched the bridge of his nose. Abydos halted, immediately realizing his mistake.

"_My apologies, Admiral. Ion Mortars A and Z are now cycling down._"

The Admiral really couldn't blame him. Abydos had done this for nearly a hundred years. Certain instincts were ingrained into him. Against an enemy like the Babylonians or Themurians, ion mortars would be convenient, though usually unnecessary. However, the Shongair had no way of defending against anything near that caliber; and this fleet was not on a mission of genocide.

"_Admiral, Aurora has reported a point-seven-five centimeter deviation in her tracking systems_."

"Again?" the Admiral sighed. The frigate _Aurora Borealis_ had been having trouble for some time now. Hopefully it was just a glitch in her tracking systems. Whatever it was, the malfunction was minor. "Be sure to have them report for maintenance when we return."

"_All other ships report no problems. We are ready, Admiral_."

"Excellent, Abydos," The Admiral commended. Knowing what was coming, the Destroyer's relatively small bridge buzzed with activity as the command crew made the final preparations for a CEJ (Combat Entry Jump).

"All ships, jump on my mark. Five…four…three…two…"

* * *

><p><strong>North Carolina, United States of America<strong>

**Earth, Terran Empire**

Flashes appeared in Earth's night sky. They looked like stars winking in and right out of existence.

Of course, Buchevsky knew what they really were.

The former Marine stood alone on a hill. The forest, like everything else on Earth, was not left completely unscathed. Unnatural craters scarred the woods, and Buchevsky had tried his best to keep them out of his sight. Those scars were all too much like the very same scars in his heart.

He knew what those flashes meant. Retribution was on its way...and yet the vampire despaired.

He wanted to avenge all the wrongs committed against man. But Vlad's words rang true within him. Would Buchevsky become the monster that Vlad once was?

No, he would not..._could_ _not_...become the Impaler. He was Stephen Buchevsky: a man...not a vampire.

"You are conflicted, my friend. No?" a heavily accented voice said from the side. "That is not surprising, if you consider our situation."

"The son of a preacher, now a vampire," Pieter continued with a chuckle.

Buchevsky couldn't help but give a small smile. Though that was not why the man was conflicted, it lifted his spirits somewhat. But the uncertainty returned.

"Pieter," he began, looking to his friend. "What am I supposed to make of this?"

The Russian vampire frowned. It was a complicated question. The Shongair...the Hegemony...Akkadians...Hundreds of interstellar empires...what was to be made of this? The answer was simple really; only a single, short phrase. It was a common phrase, one known by all peoples and in all languages...

"I do not know..."

* * *

><p>Vengeance...oh how sweet a spice!<p>

_I cannot help but think of this famous line first spoken by Emperor Valdreth Caledus during the Second Babylon War, a good four hundred years before my time._

_It is normal for me to feel anger. I am a warship. Angry is my duty._

_However, my anger towards the hopelessly primitive Shongair has not abated as easily my commanding officer's wrath has. I am a machine. My memory is endless. No wrongdoing, particularly against humanity's ancient homeworld, is ever truly forgotten by me. As a whole, Humankind has searched for the near mythical Homeworld for nearly a hundred thousand years, beginning from the moment they fled the Founders all those millennia ago. In the time before the Founders, Earth had been an empire like no other, possessing technology that bordered on magic, even to "modern" Akkadian standards. The Earth Empire was once great...but then came the Cataclysm. The Shongair made the deadly mistake of creating a second, though much smaller scale, cataclysm._

_The Founders. Such was a name driven into humanity's racial memory, and thus into their creations. For humans, it is a name to be feared: aliens who wished for nothing but to consume every sentient being in their path, and cared for nothing else._

_For me, it is a name to be hated. _I _am Abydos. _I _am a Destroyer, pride of the Akkadian fleet, protector of Akeridai itself. _I _am the _Abydos Prophet.

_Should the Enemy ever return, they will find me ready to fight them._

_Such was my oath, taken the moment I awakened within Akeridai's Gwehrworks shipyards. It is the private oath held by all artificial life within the Akkadian Empire. It is an oath that I shall carry till the day my core is destroyed._

_Aboard my vessel, I feel thousands of data inputs as crew members from all along my eighty kilometer body do their various tasks. I give a small, invisible wince as a fuse explodes in Sub-Engine Bay 23-L5. It isn't an expression of pain, however. It is more of a sympathetic reaction for the massive, lumberjack-esque figure emerging from the fuse box in a cloud of black smoke._

"_Not your brightest idea, Mog," I admonish as he gives a humongous cough._

"Ah, shuz it, bean-box," _Mog Zarbog drawls in return, though he's not really angry at me_.

_I am a sentient being. As such, I make evaluations about the many subjects that I meet: opinions. When it comes to non-humans, this generally consists of either "dangerous-kill it with fire" to "harmless-ignore it." Of the humans I have known during my ninety-seven years of service, however, a certain few have become individuals that I trust – quite a feat, earning the trust of an eighty kilometer killing machine._

_Mog is one of those few._

_He is a citizen from Magmalon, a mostly inconspicuous world at the edge of the Typhonite Empire, one of Akeridai's vassals. The people there are hardy and intelligent, but their speech is minced. However, I have spent enough time around Zarbog to recognize most (though admittedly not all) of his mannerisms and slang._

_I have also learned a hard lesson from him in my first few months of service with the Magmalonian. The "never judge a book by its cover" rule applies to people as well as enemies. Don't let his accent fool you, Mog is easily the smartest person serving aboard me – second to Admiral Acheiron, of course. In addition, he is the only man aboard that is qualified to repair Captain Ulrich's armor, a master of nearly every field of math, an expert all-around mechanic, and just brilliant in general, not to mention a pleasant person to know and about the only person who truly understands _me_: the way I think, the way I act, etc._

_However much I wish to merely speak with him, I can waste no time on pleasantries. Even now, I near my destination, painted at the back of my mind and overlaid across a great, mental image of the "Milky Way" galaxy. I swiftly return to business._

"_Sub-engineers have reported leaks in Fuel Bays 35-F3 and 92-E1 that require immediate attention, my auto-repair drones are unable to reach them," I grate to him. After a pause, I add, "The leaks have caused degradation in a railgun bank's QTS (Quantum Targetting Systems)."_

"Ah, zoggit!" _Mog declares with an obscure Magmalonian curse._ "Wotz it gunna take ta fiks dat fing?"

"_If I may, Mog. A bypass of the secondary QTS node would eliminate a need for immediate repairs that require your personal attention," I offer helpfully. "Full repairs can be delayed until our first landing operation is complete."_

_Mog thought carefully, stroking his beard absentmindedly with an omni-wrench._

"Nah, iz n'good, 'Beedose," _Mog answered. "Beedose" was his pronunciation of my name, Abydos. _"Da fing's bin bypasz'd twice. If'n I do it ag'in, da whole fing'll burst at da jointz."

_I leave my Chief Engineer to his own thoughts as he strolls to the nearest elevator, still deep in thought. Instead, responding to the sensor logs, which most of my mind was monitoring, I send my voice through the CO console on my bridge._

"_Update, Admiral," I grate, much more businesslike than with Zarbog. "ETA at Shongairi-held system is approximately five minutes."_

"Very good, Abydos," _the Admiral answers in a crisp voice, not moving from the stance he had taken at the start of the flight. _"I assume you know what to do?"

_Indeed I do. Messages echo through my "true" ears, my subspace arrays, as my smaller brothers and sisters acknowledge their readiness for combat. I dutifully do the same before confirming it with Acheiron. Then I send a short message to all of them._

"_Forward unto dawn!"_

"_Oorah!" comes the chorused reply._

* * *

><p><em>We are here. Now, at last, it is time that we performed our charge.<em>

_Within zero point seven-five-eight seconds, I begin preliminary scans of the system. I am surprised by what I see._

_By all rights, the Shongair should be unprepared for our attack. In terms of awareness, they were. The pitifully small, unshielded, lightly armored vessels in orbit around the planet were producing energy levels consistent with warships on standby._

_But in terms of ability, I see a great change from the technology I saw on the Hegemony's "neural educators." In place of stupidly exposed sensor towers, I detect armored domes. The large bays on their sides appear wide enough to admit service craft and large fighters. Their weapons, too, are more spread out, not facing the front alone._

_Perhaps (and I concede this only grudgingly) the Shongair are more industrious than I originally thought...not that it means anything, of course. Prepared or not, they have nothing that can hold a candle to Akeridai's Pride._

_I hear a voice giving me approval for Standard Capitol Battle Procedure, but it is only barely registered. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a security circuit recognizes the Admiral's voice, but I am not concentrating on that fact._

_With a flex of mechanical muscles, my great banks of gauss and plasma turrets turn towards the completely unprepared fleet. My targetting systems locate projected weak points on the five largest vessels in orbit within point-six-five seconds, and firing solutions are achieved in only an additional one point-four-three seconds._

_I fire._

_The destruction wrought in that first salvo astonishes even me. I have broken through the shields of mighty Babylonian battle carriers with great pleasure, devastated orbital fortresses with zeal, and caused entire fleets to disappear in a thermonuclear fireball, but _never _has it been so easy._

_The first two dreadnoughts are struck with my plasma cannons, the shortest range anti-capitol weapons in my arsenal. Data streams through my sensors as I see the globules of superheated material pass through the vessel with so little resistance that their naturally unstable magnetic fields fail to collapse. I recalibrate the magnetic rails to compensate for the next salvo, but even so, the shots have done grievous damage. Holes have been blown through the entirety of the ships, including their command areas (though that was no accident on my part). Both dreadnoughts are out of action._

_The other three dreadnoughts have begun to come to life. Their apparently disciplined crews and automated systems reacting with surprising speed to the sudden death of their brethren. I do not fire upon them. My gauss shells, slower than plasma shots, have yet to reach their targets._

_My gauss cannons are a marvel of human engineering, and yet also a herald of the primitive past of my creators. They fly true as an arrow, rocket themselves forward as the first combustion missiles, and contain warheads that hearken back to the dawn of the atomic age._

_I sense a deviation in the salvo's course; a magnetic field._

_The Shongairi shields are far too weak to fully deflect hundred ton rounds moving at almost a third the speed of light, but I cannot allow them to move off course. It is my nature to give no room for error or accident. With another flex of my mind, the shells realign themselves and crash into their targets with the full force of a hundred Hiroshima bombs...and that was merely their kinetic impact._

_An instant later, a dozen Thalio-uranium hybrid warheads ignite. It is overkill in the extreme. My sensors dull themselves briefly to avoid any annoying "glare" from the explosions. It is too far away to actually damage my sensors, but the effect is like sun glare on a human's eyes...so I squint._

_When the explosions fade, nothing is left of the ships but coalescing asteroids of white hot, molten metal. Their nearest escorts are knocked out by the EMP wave, rendered immobile, though I suspect only temporarily._

_When my Battle Sense fades somewhat and I begin the next phase of my duty, shock begins to wash over my metal frame._

_In only a handful of seconds, I have deprived the Shongair of their most powerful warships._

_But the shock fades quickly as I focus on my new task, responding to the Admiral's orders. My hangar bay doors open of their own accord, triggered by operators, and hundreds of point-defense railguns emerge from the space between my various banks of munitions. Birdlike forms flock from the hangars – Tangent heavy fighters, piloted by human operators. I hold back and do not deploy the many flights of Ghost light fighters within me – being automated, the fighters are linked to me for general direction. Acheiron quirked his eyebrow at the command display, noticing that all Ghost ports still showed up green (in-hanger and not in the process of launching), but he said nothing. After more than forty years serving together, we learned to trust each other on certain issues, particularly small ones like this._

_I quickly scan the multitude of smaller ships moving into position, bringing the massive barrels at their front to bear on me, correctly assuming that I am a far worse threat than the dozens of craft behind me. Aside from reflexively raising my outer shields, I pay them no mind._

_In a moment, I have shared the data with all of my brethren even as their information reaches me. Each of us have the same results. That is good._

_As I am, my brothers and sisters leave no room for error. With our data rendered redundant hundreds of times over, I am now certain of its accuracy._

_I hear an order from the Admiral and immediately reply. In an instant, my Combustion drives ramp up to full burn. I go from a near standstill to full secondary speed in the time it takes a man to blink. Once my Impulse engines kick in, firing at one-fourth burn, I reach full battle speed – one-twelfth the speed of light._

_I do not, however, aim for the enemy vessels. My concentration is focused entirely on shielding. The fleet can handle the enemy warships on their own._

_With a dull clang from my vast hangars, several dozen massive, multi-engined ships exit. Each is large enough to carry a four-tank battle squadron or a full squad of troops._

"_Devastators are away," I announce. Acheiron grunts in response before speaking._

"Abydos, begin bombardment pattern Beta," _he ordered. After a short pause he adds, _"Plasma and ion strikes only. I want as much of the infrastructure preserved as possible."

_I grimace, my body translating the action as several repair cranes in my hangar curl unpleasantly, and my gauss cannons power down. As much as I wish to exact full retribution on the Shongair, I have been ordered not to._

_The Admiral's order alone was enough for me to do it, but I also knew why he did not want any kinetic strikes._

_Allocating the resources of an entire fleet to this galaxy was hard enough. Bringing in the necessary materials to construct a Jumpgate was a nightmare. Added to that was the extreme power output required to bring gates online and the mountain of red tape to cut and accommodations to make. As it stood, Akeridai could not efficiently aid Earth's reconstruction, and the Shongair industrial complexes were far from adequate. They were pressed as it was to produce structures that humans could use, let alone for a population far larger than the originally planned Shongairi colonists. Earth would need the resources that this planet produced._

_It does not take me long to pinpoint the planet's vulnerable areas. They are relatively well protected, and I can already see the arcs of missile and laser fire intended to intercept the Devastator dropships. Several surprisingly high yield nuclear weapons impact my shields, dropping the outer layer by point-nine-two percent._

_Those sites on the planet are struck moments later by a standard half-dozen-shot salvo of plasma fire and three five-second bursts of ion fire…and they fall silent. I do a double take in the form of several sensor dishes twitching two degrees to the left when another continent lights up with missile launches. But this surprise is not a wholly unpleasant one. The Shongair are not _completely _ignorant, it would seem. Nonetheless, the sites are destroyed a few moments later._

_Now, after only a short exertion, my mainline weapons relax. The fleet has the Shongair in orbit routed, and no significant anti-orbital stations existed on the planet any longer. Though the Admiral is actively seeking reports, pouring over his command console, and barking orders left and right, I have but one job…one that I sincerely hate…_

_I sit…and I wait…_

* * *

><p><strong>Orindiantal – Shongairi Empire<strong>

Devastators had earned their name.

Despite their size, the massive dropships were unarmed aside from two small defensive turrets. Their large, rotary engines were insanely powerful, and the engines of war within the vessels' holds were more powerful.

Dozens of magnetic fields were twisted across the sky in invisible helices, attempting in vain to deflect the incoming transports. The Devastators crashed right through them, the strain causing several ground-based generators to overload and meltdown.

Meanwhile, inside, Nabonidus Cherkov was tossed left and right, feeling like he was in a dryer and not a transport.

The soldier cracked his head against the side of the ship. Instead of striking his helmet, however, the metal wall struck a field of yellow that suddenly appeared, though it had been there the whole time, unseen.

He chided himself. Perhaps Chernovan transports had spoiled him. Chernovan Kodiaks preferred setting down outside contested areas instead of barging into them. The rides given by Devastators combined all the discomforts of drop pods with the discomforts of transport drops as well.

Cherkov was not Akkadian in the direct sense. He had been born and raised in the Chernovan Empire; the Flare system, Coronia City, to be specific. Like all the other soldiers in the transport with him, he was a Chernovan...and he had dedicated his life to the military.

He was in the numbers of the Chernovan Myrmidon legions, the best of the best. After various augmentations and grueling training regimens on Abyssus, a Myrmidon training world, he had fought battle after battle, war after war, in the name of Chernova and Akeridai. Were they holy wars? Not exactly.

It was not the heathen and heretic that he sought to eliminate, but the xeno and the alien.

To Chernovans, aliens have been a bane to humanity's existence since the dawn of the Earth Empire. The coming of the Founders proved only one thing: aliens could not be trusted, and deserved little more than to be tread underfoot.

Some called the Chernovans bigots, know-it-alls, and other unsavory names for this assumption. After all, no one knew what the Founders really were, who they were, or much else about them. However, their attack on Earth was merely another example of one simple fact, according to the Chernovans...

Where there's aliens, there's trouble.

Regardless of his personal opinion, however, Cherkov was under orders to preserve the alien planet. His chagrin was only minor, considering that the resources he would save could be used for Earth's reconstruction.

A full squad of Myrmidons had been requisitioned after Earth's discovery, and Chernova was eager to grant it. Humanity's home had finally been found. The potential of finding new, unspoiled Pre-Cataclysm technology was incredible.

Fast forward to the here and now.

Cherkov had been assigned to a Hoplon Captain; quite the honor for him. Together, they would form a super-heavy weapons support team, ready to assist wherever they were required.

Between a six hundred year old war veteran and a squad of the most powerful commandos in the Akkadian Empire, the Shongair didn't stand a chance.

With a thud, the Devastator dropped to the ground as its ramp opened wide. Five armored soldiers gathered at the door, toting various heavy weapons. Cherkov himself hoisted his massive Wallgun, which was almost as tall as him when set to stand on its barrel.

"Myrmidons!" he bellowed. "Forward!"

* * *

><p><em>AN: Wazzap e'rebody!_

_I hope you enjoy the story so far. Next, the conquest of the Shongair begins. :) Some feedback on Abydos' parts of the story in particular would be welcome. I'm trying to write his point of view in a similar style as the Bolos' points of view in the late Keith Laumer's Bolo series. Is it working._

_As always, Read and Review. Peace!_


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